Health Wonk Review: More than Birth Control Pills

Written By: Jason Shafrin
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Feb•
16•12

Health care-related news topped the headlines this week. Mandates for insurers to include birth control pill in their plan benefits and news related to the Susan G. Koman foundation were featured on the front pages of most national newspapers.

While the birth control and Susan G. Koman stories are certainly important ones, there is a lot more brewing in the health policy world. The American Health Lines (AHL) Alerts Blog lists four other important health care story-lines.

House Democrats’ concern with HHS’ deference to states on the essential health benefits rules;

A federal appeals court ruling that U.S. residents enrolled in Social Security are legally entitled to Medicare;

The conference committee attempting to come to an agreement on a yearlong patch for the sustainable growth rate formula — known as a “doc fix” — which sets Medicare physician reimbursement rates; and

States and the National Federation of Independent Business filing briefs with the Supreme Court in the multistate lawsuit against the federal health reform law.

Those are just a few of the stories you can read about in this week’s edition of the Health Wonk Review.

Insure Blog discusses an unintended side effect of the birth control debate: “Knowing that all insurers are required by law to pay 100%, Obama just eliminated all price pressure. No matter what the charge is, we are required to pay it.”

Republican Presidential Candidates

Avik Roy posts on Forbes about the history of Republicans and the individual mandate. Romney said in a debate in Las Vegas last October, “we got the idea of an individual mandate…from [Newt Gingrich], and [Newt] got it from the Heritage Foundation.” Even Richard Nixon proposed an employer mandate in 1974.

HealthBlawg discusses the first HIPPA enforcement action against a business’s associate that has improperly released protected health information. What was the problem? The associate left an unencrypted laptop loaded with PHI in a rental car which was later stolen.